I was wondering if you guys can give me some advice on approximately how much I should charge for a designer to use some of my photos. Per request of my buddy, I took photos of his remodeled condominium recently, which he loved. It would appear that the design lead for the project also liked them and would like to use some of them for his website and was asking me about the fee. What's a "reasonable/fair" rate to charge for something like this?

I'm located here in Los Angeles/Santa Monica (I doubt location even matters for something like this).

I'm just an amateur/hobbyist (idiot w/ too much gear) and I shoot for fun. But at the same time, I don't want to be the guy that contributes to the problem in ruining it for the actual pros who do this for a living. (As I understand, if guys like me end up shooting for cheap/free, then people under-appreciate the pros whose livelihood depends on paid gigs and that's not fair for the real photogs out there.)

Since there's no way to really keep track of the photos afterwards, I'm assuming it's pretty much just a one-time fee to charge. What's the rate? There are about 50-photos total that I've processed and he can choose from but I doubt he'll be using more than 12 or so (it's just a 1600 sq condo).

I license Rights-Managed images and I usually charge about $50 per image for commercial website usage. Sometimes even more depending on usage. If there are multiple images I usually negotiate a fair price if they want multiple images. I purchase images at times and you can usually get Royalty Free images for about $10 as long as you are not buying large amounts through a subscription service and then you can get them cheaper, but $10 dollars for an image is about as cheap as you will find from most Stock Agencies.

I see people selling stock images from $1 to $100 or more depending on resolution and license type though. I sometimes work with the buyer to determine an appropriate price. Small businesses I may work out a better price then large businesses that may have a larger budget.

I am also an amateur/hobbyist but am slowly building up a business for when I retire from my current career. So just my two cents. Hopefully some that do this full time might have some thoughts and recommendations.

'Imagination is more important than knowledge.' —Albert Einsteinhttp://timdahlphotogra​phy.com

".. would like to use some of them for his website and was asking me about the fee. What's a "reasonable/fair" rate to charge for something like this?

I'm located here in Los Angeles/Santa Monica..."

Just their website or will he want to use them in any marketing materials? The prices given by the others responding have been very low compared to the normal LA market for this type of photography/usage. $300 per image would be a low price, but you can see getting truthful or accurate advice online is not as easy as just posting a forum question or people will throw numbers at you wether they're knowledgable numbers or not.

Why not go to Getty and price out a similar interior image (RM) for web use and see their costs? How much would it cost to schedule a photographer (pro) to shoot the space? People claiming royalty free costs are equivalent forget that it's not some generic beach image but a specific space.

p.s. Quality, or you being a hobbyist has nothing to do with how much you charge these are stock images, they've already been shot and he's already seen them and decided to use them. You are in a much better position not needing to sell them to pay rent either he pays a fair amount or you get to hold your head up knowing you didn't cave in on a bad negotiation. Making $100 is not making $100 it's not being any good at simple business negotiations where there was much more money on the table

archfotos wrote in post #18162146".. would like to use some of them for his website and was asking me about the fee. What's a "reasonable/fair" rate to charge for something like this?

I'm located here in Los Angeles/Santa Monica..."

Just their website or will he want to use them in any marketing materials? The prices given by the others responding have been very low compared to the normal LA market for this type of photography/usage. $300 per image would be a low price, but you can see getting truthful or accurate advice online is not as easy as just posting a forum question or people will throw numbers at you wether they're knowledgable numbers or not.

Why not go to Getty and price out a similar interior image (RM) for web use and see their costs? How much would it cost to schedule a photographer (pro) to shoot the space? People claiming royalty free costs are equivalent forget that it's not some generic beach image but a specific space.

p.s. Quality, or you being a hobbyist has nothing to do with how much you charge these are stock images, they've already been shot and he's already seen them and decided to use them. You are in a much better position not needing to sell them to pay rent either he pays a fair amount or you get to hold your head up knowing you didn't cave in on a bad negotiation. Making $100 is not making $100 it's not being any good at simple business negotiations where there was much more money on the table

Thanks for the excellent feedback/info. I had responded back to the designer with $500 fee yesterday evening and I've heard nothing but crickets so far. And that's okay by me. I'm not hard up on cash and while I may not be doing this professionally, I also don't want to sabotage the industry. Don't want devalue the work that is involved. It was couple of hours on site and several hours of post-processing to put the set together for my buddy.

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